Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet Part 46

"The government expect it, I can tell you. They're in a pitiable funk, I hear. One regiment is ordered to Uxbridge already, because they daren't trust it. They'll find soldiers are men, I do believe, after all."

"Men they are," said Sandy; "an' therefore they'll no be fools eneugh to stan' by an' see ye pu' down a' that is, to build up ye yourselves dinna yet rightly ken what. Men? Ay, an' wi' mair common sense in them than some that had mair opportunities."

"I think I've settled everything," went on Crossthwaite, who seemed not to have heard the last speech--"settled everything--for poor Katie, I mean.

If anything happens to me, she has friends at Cork--she thinks so at least--and they'd get her out to service somewhere--G.o.d knows!" And his face worked fearfully a minute.

"Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori!" said I.

"There are twa methods o' fulfilling that saw, I'm thinkin'. Impreemis, to shoot your neebour; in secundis, to hang yoursel."

"What do you mean by grumbling at the whole thing in this way, Mr. Mackaye?

Are you, too, going to shrink back from The Cause, now that liberty is at the very doors?"

"Ou, then, I'm stanch eneuch. I ha' laid in my ain stock o' weapons for the fecht at Armageddon."

"You don't mean it? What have you got?"

"A braw new halter, an' a muckle nail. There's a gran' tough beam here ayont the ingle, will haud me a' crouse and cantie, when the time comes."

"What on earth do you mean?" asked we both together.

"Ha' ye looked into the monster-pet.i.tion?"

"Of course we have, and signed it too!"

"Monster? Ay, ferlie! Monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum. Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne. Leeberty, the bonnie la.s.sie, wi' a sealgh's fud to her! I'll no sign it. I dinna consort wi'

shoplifters, an' idiots, an' suckin' bairns--wi' long nose, an' short nose, an' pug nose, an' seventeen Deuks o' Wellington, let alone a baker's dizen o' Queens. It's no company, that, for a puir auld patriot!"

"Why, my dear Mackaye," said I, "you know the Reform Bill pet.i.tions were just as bad."

"And the Anti-Corn-law ones, too, for that matter," said Crossthwaite. "You know we can't help accidents; the pet.i.tion will never be looked through."

"It's always been the plan with Whigs and Tories, too!"

"I ken that better than ye, I guess."

"And isn't everything fair in a good cause?" said Crossthwaite.

"Desperate men really can't be so dainty."

"How lang ha' ye learnit that deil's lee, Johnnie? Ye were no o' that mind five years agone, lad. Ha' ye been to Exeter Hall the while? A's fair in the cause o' Mammon; in the cause o' cheap bread, that means cheap wages; but in the cause o' G.o.d--wae's me, that ever I suld see this day ower again! ower again! Like the dog to his vomit--just as it was ten, twenty, fifty year agone. I'll just ha' a pet.i.tion a' alane to mysel--I, an' a twa or three honest men. Besides, ye're just eight days ower time wi' it."

"What do you mean?"

"Suld ha' sent it in the 1st of April, an' no the 10th; a' fool's day wud ha' suited wi' it ferlie!"

"Mr. Mackaye," said Crossthwaite, in a pa.s.sion, "I shall certainly inform the Convention of your extraordinary language!"

"Do, laddie! do, then! An' tell 'em this, too"--and, as he rose, his whole face and figure a.s.sumed a dignity, an awfulness, which I had never seen before in him--"tell them that ha' driven out * * * * and * * * *, an'

every one that daur speak a word o' common sense, or common humanity--them that stone the prophets, an' quench the Spirit o' G.o.d, and love a lie, an'

them that mak the same--them that think to bring about the reign o' love an' britherhood wi' pikes an' vitriol bottles, murther an' blasphemy--tell 'em that ane o' fourscore years and mair--ane that has grawn grey in the people's cause--that sat at the feet o' Cartwright, an' knelt by the death-bed o' Rabbie Burns--ane that cheerit Burdett as he went to the Touer, an' spent his wee earnings for Hunt an' Cobbett--ane that beheld the shaking o' the nations in the Ninety-three, and heard the birth-shriek o'

a newborn world--ane that while he was yet a callant saw Liberty afar off, an' seeing her was glad, as for a bonny bride, an' followed her through the wilderness for threescore weary waeful years--sends them the last message that e'er he'll send on airth: tell 'em that they're the slaves o' wa.r.s.e than priests and kings--the slaves o' their ain l.u.s.ts an' pa.s.sions--the slaves o' every loud-tongued knave an' mountebank that'll pamper them in their self-conceit; and that the gude G.o.d'll smite 'em down, and bring 'em to nought, and scatter 'em abroad, till they repent, an' get clean hearts and a richt speerit within them, and learn His lesson that he's been trying to teach 'em this threescore years--that the cause o' the people is the cause o' Him that made the people; an' wae to them that tak' the deevil's tools to do his wark wi'! Gude guide us!--What was yon, Alton, laddie?"

"What?"

"But I saw a s.p.u.n.k o' fire fa' into your bosom! I've na faith in siccan heathen omens; but auld carlins wud say it's a sign o' death within the year--save ye from it, my puir misguidit bairn! Aiblins a fire-flaught o'

my een, it might be--I've had them unco often, the day--"

And he stooped down to the fire, and began to light his pipe, muttering to himself--

"Saxty years o' madness! saxty years o' madness! How lang, O Lord, before thou bring these puir daft bodies to their richt mind again?"

We stood watching him, and interchanging looks--expecting something, we knew not what.

Suddenly he sank forward on his knees, with his hands on the bars of the grate; we rushed forward, and caught him up. He turned his eyes up to me, speechless, with a ghastly expression; one side of his face was all drawn aside--and helpless as a child, he let us lift him to his bed, and there he lay staring at the ceiling.

Four weary days pa.s.sed by--it was the night of the ninth of April. In the evening of that day his speech returned to him on a sudden--he seemed uneasy about something, and several times asked Katie the day of the month.

"Before the tenth--ay, we maun pray for that. I doubt but I'm ower hearty yet--I canna bide to see the shame o' that day--

"Na--I'll tak no potions nor pills--gin it were na for scruples o'

conscience, I'd apocartereeze a'thegither, after the manner o' the ancient philosophers. But it's no' lawful, I mis...o...b.., to starve onesel."

"Here is the doctor," said Katie.

"Doctor? Wha ca'd for doctors? Canst thou administer to a mind diseased?

Can ye tak long nose, an' short nose, an' snub nose, an' seventeen Deuks o' Wellington out o' my puddins? Will your castor oil, an' your calomel, an' your croton, do that? D'ye ken a medicamentum that'll put brains into workmen--? Non tribus Anti-cyrus! Tons o' h.e.l.lebore--acres o' strait waistcoats--a hall police-force o' head-doctors, winna do it. Juvat insanire--this their way is their folly, as auld Benjamin o' Tudela saith of the heathen. Heigho! 'Forty years lang was he grevit wi' this generation, an' swore in his wrath that they suldna enter into his rest.'

Pulse? tongue? ay, shak your lugs, an' tak your fee, an' dinna keep auld folk out o' their graves. Can ye sing?"

The doctor meekly confessed his inability.

"That's pity--or I'd gar ye sing Auld-lang-syne,--

"We twa hae paidlit in the burn--

"Aweel, aweel, aweel--"

Weary and solemn was that long night, as we sat there, with the crus.h.i.+ng weight of the morrow on our mind, watching by that death-bed, listening hour after hour to the rambling soliloquies of the old man, as "he babbled of green fields"; yet I verily believe that to all of us, especially to poor little Katie, the active present interest of tending him kept us from going all but mad with anxiety and excitement. But it was weary work:--and yet, too, strangely interesting, as at times there came sc.r.a.ps of old Scotch love-poetry, contrasting sadly with the grim withered lips that uttered them--hints to me of some sorrow long since suffered, but never healed. I had never heard him allude to such an event before but once, on the first day of our acquaintance.

"I went to the kirk, My luve sat afore me; I trow my twa een Tauld him a sweet story.

"Aye wakin o'-- Wakin aye and weary-- I thocht a' the kirk Saw me and my deary.